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Choosing Between Unassisted and Midwife Assisted Homebirth

© Becky Jackson

Ever since my last hospital birth 5 years ago, I've known that if I ever did it again, it would be at home. The things I wanted from a homebirth would include freedom (from being strapped down with monitoring equipment and hospital rules), comfort (in the form of familiar surroundings), control (in choosing labor and birth positions), and a cozy, intimate setting with my husband and baby.

Once we decided to try for another baby, the question now was, what kind of homebirth did we want? Enlist the assistance of a midwife or take on pregnancy and birth entirely on our own? Either choice sounded like a reasonable way to reach my goal of a natural, instinctive, empowering birth experience.

I remembered a cousin who had 3 unassisted, or perhaps more correctly "husband assisted" homebirths and I thought that sounded wonderful. My husband had been with me at other deliveries and was confident that he could handle the job.

I checked out the homebirth forum at http://www.mothering.com/ and found several women discussing their experiences with unassisted childbirth, or as it's commonly nicknamed, "UC". My reading there led me to http://www.lauriemorgan.com/ for some great, affirming articles and practical answers. I also checked out Laura Shanley's articles at http://unassistedchildbirth.com/ and bought Lynn Greisemer's book, Unassisted Homebirth: An Act of Love.

Through my research, I became aware of a crucial point in the argument for the safety of homebirth: the many surprising and unknown ways that hospital routines and doctors' intervention can cause many of the very problems that they are there to fix. I began to trust that by birthing in a more natural setting where intuition plays a major role, many common problems do not arise.

I realized I had experienced intervention-induced difficulty first hand in my hospital births. For example, at the end of my first delivery, my daughter's head remained high even though I was fully dilated and having the urge to push. The doctor couldn't understand why and resorted to forceps, vacuum extractor, and eventually, two nurses pushing down hard on my belly. These maneuvers finally forced my baby down, fracturing her collarbone in the process. I made it through the ordeal with a badly torn perineum and a somewhat damaged bladder.

When I was giving birth for the third time, I was beginning to have the same problem once again. My son was remaining high though I was starting to have the urge to push. This time though, I had a doctor (a D.O.) who was trained in natural childbirth methods. He'd already clued me in on the benefits of perineal massage and an upright birthing position. He speculated that my bladder was too full for the baby to properly descend. He instructed me to empty my bladder, and my son came down and out right afterward. After that, I figured out the problem and related it to my first birth. Each time I was in labor in the hospital and needed to use the bathroom, the nurses told me it was too much trouble to unhook me and I would have to use a bedpan. "Never mind, I'll hold it," I said, which I did for 8 hours the first time and 4 hours the third birth. Toward the end of labor, I could no longer feel the sensation of a full bladder and, even though I wasn't allowed to drink water, I was being filled with fluid through the standard IV.